9 Favorite Film Scores of Dimitri Tiomkin

With the recent release of SAE’s splendid soundtrack for CYRANO DE BERGERAC, I figured this month’s “9 on the 9th” post was the perfect time to celebrate the music of four-time Academy Award winner Dimitri Tiomkin. Known primarily for his scores for countless westerns and epic films of the 1950s and ’60s, Tiomkin is a polarizing composer with many film music fans. And it’s easy to see why.

Tiomkin’s early career as a concert pianist no doubt contributes to the long, continuous music full of loud, dramatic orchestral flourishes and probably more notes per score than almost any composer, then or now. A Tiomkin score is not content to sit idly by in the background. From the opening bars of the main titles, Tiomkin’s music is more often than not front and center.

What the music often lacked in subtlety, it made up for in the sheer complexity of the compositions. Filled with long, flowing melodies, overlapping lines and some of the most famous tunes ever written for film, Tiomkin had an inimitable style in his orchestrations and harmonic structure. And in an age when so many film scores sound like one another, it’s refreshing to revisit the unique, if occasionally exasperating, voice of one of the giants of the Golden Age.

9. THE OLD MAN AND THE SEA (1958)

Ernest Hemingway’s Pulitzer Prize-winning story (it’s not much of a “novel”) about a poor Cuban fisherman and his battles snagging a marlin also isn’t much of a film, even in the hands of old pros like director Fred Zinnemann and Spencer Tracy. But the Cuban milieu and the interminable scenes with nothing but visuals and Tracy’s voiceover providing the fisherman’s internal thoughts gave Tiomkin the opportunity to create a lush score that ebbs and flows with the waves crashing on the shore. Tiomkin won his fourth and final Oscar, but I would have given it to Jerome Moross’ classic THE BIG COUNTRY.

8. LOST HORIZON (1937)

James Hilton’s adventure set in Shangri-La gave Tiomkin a broad, foreign musical canvas, setting the tone for many of his later scores. In the first of his many Oscar-nominated scores, Tiomkin musters massive instrumental and choral forces to convey the story’s adventure and other-worldliness. Pentatonic scales and Asian-flavored percussion add to the musical mysticism.

7. GIANT (1956)

Edna Ferber’s sprawling, overbaked soaper of oil and greed on a Texas ranch is the perfect backdrop for yet another classic Tiomkin western score. The arid, vast expanse of the Lone Star State is captured in Tiomkin’s elongated main theme, while the strings swell with passions overheating in the Texas sun. As David Raksin told it, “When Tiomkin was once asked to explain how ‘a real, no-kidding Slav’ acquired such a gift for composing melodies that bespoke the plains of the American West…Tiomkin replied, ‘Because a steppe is a steppe!'”

I doubt this score would have appeared on this list without SAE’s recent release of the original soundtrack. But Tiomkin’s Baroque stylings are such a welcome change from the grand statements he makes in his westerns and epic films that the score has become an instant favorite. Edmund Rostand’s nasal challenged poet couldn’t ask for better swashbuckling (and love making) accompaniment than Tiomkin’s harpsichord-led recitatives.

5. RED RIVER (1948)

Howard Hawks’ classic western stars John Wayne and Montgomery Clift on the first cattle drive from Texas to Kansas along the Chisholm Trail. Harmonica and banjo color yet another of Tiomkin’s many classic western scores. Tiomkin weaves the legendary pioneer song, “Git Along Little Doggie,” throughout the score, adding cattle trail authenticity. Though I’d love to hear Tiomkin’s original soundtrack on its own, apparently the acetates are beyond repair. Thankfully, we have Morgan and Stromberg’s excellent re-recording on Naxos.

4. THE FALL OF THE ROMAN EMPIRE (1964)

Producer Samuel Bronston was known for his gargantuan epic films like KING OF KINGS, EL CID and 55 DAYS AT PEKING. But EMPIRE is one long fall that probably needs to be seen on the big screen to appreciate it fully. If the fall of a civilization isn’t enough to sustain your interest, Tiomkin’s over-the-top score just might. The score encompasses both sides of Tiomkin’s talent, the good and the bad. But its sheer hubris and musical complexity demand attention. Some gorgeous tunes don’t hurt it either.

John Wayne’s epic has so much wrong with it that you just might want to forget the Alamo. But Tiomkin’s score isn’t one of them. Filled with great tunes like “The Ballad of the Alamo” and “The Green Leaves of Summer,” Tiomkin’s music spurs on the doomed Texas volunteer soldiers as they battle Santa Anna’s superior Mexican forces. The original soundtrack album contained only a fraction of Tiomkin’s nearly 2-1/2 hour score, interspersed with Wayne’s flag-waving dialogue. The recent Tadlow recording of the complete score opened my eyes to Tiomkin’s superb accomplishment.

2. THE GUNS OF NAVARONE (1961)

This crackerjack World War II adventure stars Gregory Peck as the head of an Allied commando team sent to destroy an impregnable German fortress in the Aegean Sea. Tadlow’s premiere of the entire score finally alerted me not only to the power of the score, but also to the talent behind Tiomkin’s bold, and occasionally over-the-top, music. The militaristic tone of the score’s memorable main theme gives the score energy, while the mandolin gives the music a proper Grecian flavor.

1. HIGH NOON (1952)

If you want to find the score that secured Tiomkin’s place in film music history, good and bad, look no further than HIGH NOON. With its ever-present use of its Oscar-winning song, Hollywood producers began to require main title songs on their films, whether or not it fit the tone of the picture. But what they missed in their rush to get publicity and radio play was Tiomkin’s deft deconstruction of the song throughout his Oscar-winning score. Its use over the main title tells the entire story of the film. Tiomkin then excerpts not only vocal selections to comment on the story, but the musical and rhythmic motifs form the body of the underscore. The score is as integral to the success of the film as Gary Cooper’s Oscar-winning performance, Carl Foreman’s lean script and Fred Zinnemann’s taut direction. The SAE release of the original tracks deserves a spot on the shelf of every film music fan.

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7 comments

Distinctive and overbearing certainly describe Dimitri Tiomkin alright; but there’s no denying he had a giant talent that actually was expressed in his repertoire.

My favorite work of his is WILD IS THE WIND, maybe because Johnny Mathis really nailed that title song.

I thought he added the right touch to FRIENDLY PERSUASION too, which I think is one of his more sensitive scores.

Lately I’ve been listening to the recent release of THE WAR WAGON, which isn’t my kind of score, but is undeniably enjoyable. It’s a tribute to Tiomkin’s canny ability to provide just the right hook when it came to movie music.

I have no problem with your choices, especially Old Man and the Sea (even if Big Country did deserve the Oscar). I would add 55 Days at Peking- a kind of Chinese Alamo with a similar range. A rousing overture but, like Alamo, very tender Main Title. Lost Horizon, like much of his pre-1950s work, lacks a balance and subtly which wears me down a bit (Red River excepted).

I like 55 DAYS AT PEKING as well. I hope someone does a complete issue of that score eventually, either the original tracks or a rerecording. I also agree about LOST HORIZON. I think it’s an excellent score but it gets to be a little much after a while.

No doubt Mr. Tiomkin could make an orchestra sound like twenty thunderstorms raging, but the pure and simple emotion that man could arouse in his filmic composition makes most, but not all, contemporary film music sound unfocused and uninvolved. There are exceptions, but way too few for me, at least.

A single cue entitled “Mission Accomplished” from the original Columbia Records vinyl release of “The Guns of Navarone” contains and conveys more palpable and truthful human feeling than a film music-loving soul can handle.

Particularly after the tumultuous, yet colorfully orchestrated action music dies down, the choral performance of the “Yassu” theme overwhelms me in a most benign and suffusive way. The chromatic harmonies for the voices are as blissful, moving and serene as what I would imagine a near-death experience would be like.

Yeah, I’m pretty much describing a musical epiphany! I miss that kind of experience while sitting in a darkened theater. When was the last time a film score elicited such a response from you?